Thailand

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS, 1980-87

Prime Minister Prem TinsulanondaCourtesy Royal Thai Embassy

The Royal Family of Thailand in the early 1980sCourtesy Royal Thai Embassy

In 1987 Thailand was stable under Prime Minister Prem's
eighth consecutive year of administration, even though his
leadership was criticized for alleged indecisiveness and
weakness. The country had not experienced a successful military
coup since October 1977, and in 1987 few politically or
economically destabilizing issues existed. As in past decades,
the military continued to be influential in the political
process. Significantly, however, "one of the most surprising
aspects of recent Thai politics," as American political scientist
Ansil Ramsay noted, "is that political change has occurred within
a parliamentary framework instead of through military coups."

In January 1980, while dismissing as obsolete the flurry of
seasonal rumors of an imminent coup, then-Prime Minister
Kriangsak declared that "our military officers who are pursuing a
democratic course" would never allow it to happen. He did not,
however, rule out a coup if there were good reason, but only as a
last resort. He also made the point that he would step down if
there was a majority political party run by trustworthy and
efficient political party executives.

At the end of February, Kriangsak stepped down, not, however,
because there was a party he could trust. Rather, the factious
military was unable to give the former army commander in chief
the unified support he needed at the time to weather a political
storm brought on by economic troubles. Predictably, he was
succeeded by Prem, the army commander in chief at the time,
making Kriangsak the first ex-military prime minister ever to
give up power voluntarily (see
table 14, Appendix). Prem survived
two attempted coups and provided years of stability, which the
country needed for the institutionalization of a political
process based on the party system. The development of party
politics was still under way in 1987, albeit with occasional
setbacks.

Although Prem initially ruled through a coalition cabinet of
three parties--the Democrat (Prachathipat) Party, the Social
Action (Kit Sangkhom) Party, and the Chart Thai (Thai Nation)
Party--his real political base was the armed forces, the
traditional source and guarantor of political power
(see Political Parties
, this ch.). In 1980, as from the early 1970s,
the military was divided into several cliques. One of the more
influential cliques called itself "the Young Military Officers
Group," popularly nicknamed "the Young Turks." The influential
members of this group belonged to Class Seven (1960 graduates) of
the elite Chulachomkhlao Royal Military Academy. Their aim was to
enhance military professionalism as well as to ensure a decisive
role for the military in the Thai political process. In 1980
their support was key to Prem's ascension to the prime
ministership. In April 1981, however, they turned against Prem,
who at that time was still army commander in chief. Apparently
the Young Turks believed that Prem had betrayed their trust by
consorting with political opportunists and party politicians in
his coalition government and, worse yet, by taking sides with
rival military cliques opposed to the Young Turks. For two days,
the Young Turks controlled the capital city, but they failed to
win the monarch's tacit consent, which had been crucial to the
traditional legitimization of a coup. Thirty-eight coup plotters-
-including their leaders, Colonel Manoon Rupekahorn and Colonel
Prachak Sawangchit--were dismissed from the army. After the
abortive coup, General Arthit Kamlangek, who was credited with a
key role in thwarting the attempt, was promoted to commander of
the First Army Region; traditionally, this post was regarded as
the most strategic one in the making of coups and countercoups
(see Military Structure
, ch. 5). It was also noticeable that
Class Five (1958 graduates) of the military academy, the Young
Turks' chief rival faction, were promoted to some key army posts.

In August 1981, Prem relinquished his post as army commander
in chief but continued to head his second coalition cabinet. This
coalition was formed in March 1981, after a cabinet crisis
brought on by the withdrawal of the Social Action Party from the
ruling coalition. The second coalition comprised the Chart Thai
Party, the Democrat Party, and the United Democracy (Saha
Prachathipatai) Party, the latter a loose alliance of minor
parties. In December 1981, this cabinet was reorganized to make
room for the Social Action Party, which decided to return to
Prem's third cabinet.

Another notable development of the year was Kriangsak's entry
into partisan politics when he won a parliamentary by-election in
August. For this purpose, he founded the National Democracy
(Chart Prachathipatai) Party in June. Thus, he became the first
former army commander in chief and prime minister to enter party
politics through the so-called front door--the parliamentary
route. Because of his background and experience, Kriangsak was
often mentioned as an alternative to Prem.

Another frequently mentioned alternative was General Arthit,
a palace favorite, whose rapid rise to the post of commander in
chief of the army in October 1982 was unprecedented. To some Thai
observers, outspoken Arthit was "the strongman of the future,"
destined to become the next prime minister.

It was not unusual for a Thai general to air his views
publicly on socioeconomic or political issues, and such
utterances were often considered important. As political
scientist John L.S. Girling noted, "The power and authority of
the military-bureaucratic regime, which had been so long in
existence, depended not so much on the physical means of coercion
that it possessed . . . as in the acceptance by
extrabureaucratic elements of the inevitability of that power and
their inability to challenge it."

In the 1980s, the military dominance in politics, however,
seemed to be undergoing some change, partly because the officer
corps was not as cohesive as it had been previously and hence was
less able to impose its will. For example, the lack of unity
among the officers and their allies in the Senate and the
political parties was largely to blame for the failure to amend
the Constitution in 1983
(see National Assembly
, this ch.).
Factionalism continued unabated, particularly between members of
Class Seven and of Class Five of the Chulachomkhlao Royal
Military Academy. The relative influence of these factions was
reflected in the annual reshuffle of the military high command--
the traditional barometer of real political power--announced each
year in September. By 1983 the Class Five faction, sometimes
known as the "democratic soldiers" group, seemed to be
particularly influential.

Another factor bearing on the military's changing political
role was the generals' own growing perception that a coup was
undemocratic, if not uncivilized. As a result, an increasing
number of generals and colonels in retirement chose to involve
themselves in party politics. In the election held on April 18,
1983, for example, the Chart Thai Party captured 73 of 324 seats
in the House of Representatives--nearly twice its 1979 total (see
table 15, Appendix). Led by Major General (retired) Pramarn
Adireksan, this party had a large number of retired military
officers. After the election, the Chart Thai Party emerged as the
top party in parliament with 108 seats by absorbing independents
and other minor party members. Nonetheless, it was not included
in Prem's fourth coalition cabinet. This exclusion reportedly was
because of the party's aggressive postelection maneuvers for what
it claimed as the moral right to form a new government. Such
aggressiveness antagonized other parties, which wanted Prem for
another term as their consensus prime minister. Prem's fourth
coalition consisted of four parties: Social Action Party,
Democrat Party, Prachakorn Thai (Thai People) Party, and National
Democracy Party
(see Political Parties
, this ch.).

The political situation was volatile during 1984, with rumors
of a coup, a cabinet reorganization, and a rift between Prem and
Arthit--two of the most frequently mentioned political actors.
Arthit continued to project a forceful image with his
confrontational approach, a sharp contrast to Prem's low-keyed,
conciliatory approach. Also serving as the supreme commander of
the armed forces beginning in September 1983, Arthit at times
challenged the propriety of important government policies. In
November, for example, he made a televised condemnation of the
government's policy of devaluation. Also in 1984, apparently with
Arthit's blessing, some active-duty and retired army officers
pressed for constitutional amendments aimed at enhancing their
political influence through the Senate and the cabinet. A
showdown between Arthit's camp and Prem's ruling coalition seemed
imminent. Arthit backed off, however, urging the army officers to
abandon, at least for the time, the drive for amendments. It
appeared that the monarchy played a key role in defusing the
tension. In this context, Thai political scientist Juree Vichit-
Vadakan commented that the monarchy was "likely to be the single
most important force capable of holding the country together
during times of chaos and crisis and of assuring the viability of
a democratic process in Thailand. With a clear commitment of the
monarchy to a constitutional government, democracy Thai style
ultimately may have a chance to take root."

In 1985 Thailand survived another military challenge to its
constitutional government in the form of an abortive coup, again
led by Manoon, the Young Turks colonel who had engineered the
unsuccessful coup in 1981. On September 9, a small band of army
and air force officers with several hundred men and twenty-two
tanks made a vain predawn bid for power. The coup collapsed after
ten hours, but not before seven persons were killed and scores
wounded. Manoon was allowed to go into exile as part of a deal to
avert further bloodshed. Among those detained for complicity were
Kriangsak, Prem's predecessor and leader of the National
Democracy Party; the former army commander in chief and supreme
commander of the armed forces, General Sern Na Nakorn; the former
deputy army commander in chief, General Yos Thephasdin na
Ayutthaya; the former deputy supreme commander of the armed
forces, Air Chief Marshal Krasae Intharathat; and the still-
serving deputy supreme commander of the armed forces Air Chief
Marshal Arun Prompthep.

The facts surrounding the affair were still unclear as of
mid-1987, but observers generally suggested two reasons for the
failure of the coup. One was factiousness in the military. The
other was the perceived obsolescence of a coup, a view shared by
a widening circle of military officers, senior civil servants,
businessmen, financiers, industrialists, white-collar executives,
intellectuals, and, significantly, by the king as well. According
to this perception, popular demand for participation and
representation, whetted by the advent of industrialization in
Thailand, could be better accommodated by a parliamentary
government than by an authoritarian and narrowly based military
regime. Despite the absence of a successful coup since 1977,
however, few informed Thai seemed to believe that the country was
on a steady course toward fuller democratic rule. Thai political
scientist Likhit Dhiravegin observed in December 1986, "[If] one
probes deeper, one would get a feeling that despite the existence
of the elected assembly and a Cabinet consisting of civilians,
the final say on who should be the prime minister still rests
mainly with the military."

In partisan politics, the Democrat Party, the oldest and the
best organized party, fared well. Of the seven seats at stake in
five by-elections held in 1985, the Democrats won five, four of
them in Bangkok, where they also captured thirty-eight seats in
the election for the fifty-four-member city council. One of the
winning Democrats was General Harn Linanond, a former commander
of the Fourth Army Region who quit the army in 1984 in a dispute
with General Arthit. In 1985 Harn, who was deputy leader of the
Democrat Party, and his party colleagues opposed a one-year
extension of service for Arthit, who was due for retirement in
September 1985. The army had reportedly ordered its personnel in
Bangkok to vote for former Lieutenant General Vitoon Yasawas,
Harn's rival, running on the Social Action Party ticket.

Tensions between the army and the Democrat Party also
surfaced in Thailand's first gubernatorial election for Bangkok
in November 1985. This contest was won handily by former Major
General Chamlong Srimuang, a devout Buddhist, former chief aide
to Prem and former leader of the Class Seven military academy
graduates. Chamlong ran as an independent but was strongly
supported by Arthit, who publicly urged his subordinates and
their families to vote against any party that had an antimilitary
orientation. His urging was directed particularly against the
Democrat Party. Arthit's support would have made little
difference in the outcome of the contest because of Chamlong's
immense personal appeal to nearly every segment of the Bangkok
electorate.

The eventful year of 1986 augured well for the future of
party politics. Prem's coalition overcame a minor cabinet crisis,
reined in outspoken Arthit, held the third parliamentary election
since 1979, and improved the climate for professionalization of
the military. At the root of the cabinet crisis was endemic
factional strife within the Social Action Party, the senior
partner in Prem's four-party coalition. This problem necessitated
a cabinet reorganization in January and, worse still, caused the
coalition government an embarrassing parliamentary defeat on a
routine legislative bill. Facing the certainty of a major
parliamentary fight over a motion of no-confidence against his
government, Prem consulted King Bhumibol and dissolved the House
of Representatives, with an election slated for July 27--eleven
months ahead of schedule. The political arena was explosive at
that juncture, as a result of mounting tension between the two
competing poles of power--Prem and Arthit. Relations between them
had become steadily strained since Arthit's public assault on the
government's fiscal and monetary policies in November 1984.

Another complicating factor was Arthit's decision to set up
the army's "election-monitoring center" in connection with the
forthcoming election, an action some Thai criticized as an
unwarranted foray into politics. Still another complication was
active lobbying by Arthit's loyalists to have the army commander
in chief's term extended another year to September 1987. If these
loyalists had had their way, the extension would have enabled
them to influence political realignment to their advantage in
1987--after Prem's four-year mandate expired in April. A new
election, to be held within sixty days from mid-April, would have
been held while the army was still under Arthit's direction.

On March 24, 1986, the government announced that Arthit would
be retired as scheduled on September 1. Then on May 27, the
government stunned the nation by dismissing the army commander in
chief and replacing him with General Chaovalit Yongchaiyut, a
Prem loyalist. Prior to that, no army commander in chief had been
fired before the expiration of his term. This unprecedented
action came amid the flurry of rumors that Arthit was involved in
behind-the-scenes maneuvers to undermine Prem's chances for
another premiership after the July election. Arthit, whose
largely ceremonial post as supreme commander of the armed forces
until September 1986 was not affected by the dismissal order,
denied any role in such maneuvers.

Chaovalit quickly set the tone of his army leadership by
promising to keep the military out of politics, by dissolving the
army's election watchdog center, and by pledging military
neutrality in the election. Later in August, the army announced
that twenty-eight of the thirty-eight Young Turks officers
cashiered in the wake of the abortive coup in 1981 had been
reinstated to active service; Colonel Manoon officially remained
a fugitive from prosecution. The reinstatement, though mostly to
nonsensitive noncommand positions, was widely welcomed as an
important step toward restoring unity in the army and improving
the prospect for military professionalism. In the annual
September reshuffle of senior military officials, Chaovalit
strengthened his power base by appointing Class Five graduates of
the military academy to key senior commands.

The July 1986 election involved the participation of 3,810
candidates representing 16 parties. Candidates of the outgoing
coalition parties campaigned, generally avoiding any association
with Prem. The contest literally was wide open; no single party
was expected to win an electoral mandate outright in the newly
enlarged 347-seat House of Representatives. As in 1983, Prem
declined to run in this election, citing the "need to maintain my
neutrality and to let the election be held . . . free from any
factor that may sway the people." Nevertheless, because he might
again be picked as the compromise choice of major parties to lead
the postelection government, the issue of an elected or
nonelected prime minister became a focus of campaign debate.
Regardless of partisanship, however, nearly all agreed that the
austerity measures that had been initiated by the outgoing
government should be scuttled as a major step toward accelerating
economic recovery and boosting rural incomes. Evidently Bangkok's
powerful banking and business families, who had suffered as a
result of such measures since late 1984, effectively brought
their influence to bear on many candidates. The army did not
intervene, but Chaovalit warned that the military would not stand
idly by if the postelection government failed the people's trust.

Predictably, no party emerged with a majority, although the
Democrat Party captured the largest bloc of seats with 100, which
was 44 more than it had in 1983. Most observers agreed that a
coalition led by the Democrat Party would stand little chance of
survival; the party had nowhere near a majority and, moreover,
was traditionally the most outspoken critic of military
involvement in politics. Thus, despite the lack of any ground
swell for a nonelected prime minister, Prem again emerged as the
compromise leader most acceptable to the army, the palace, and
the major political parties.

The new coalition cabinet Prem unveiled in August consisted
of four parties, with a combined strength of 232 seats
distributed among the Democrat Party (100), the Chart Thai Party
(63), the Social Action Party (51), and the Rassadorn (People)
Party (18). These four were among the seven parties that
initially agreed to support Prem; the remaining three not in the
coalition were the Prachakorn Thai Party (24), the Ruam Thai
(Thai Unity) Party (19), and the Community Action (Kit
Prachakhorn) Party (15). The three parties later formed an
opposition bloc with several other minor parties. The United
Democracy Party, which commanded thirty-eight seats, agreed to
support the opposition bloc in voting against the government on
an issue-by-issue basis.

In September 1986, the fifty-four-year-old army commander in
chief, Chaovalit, pledged his support for "the parliamentary
government," adding that there would be "no more coups" as long
as he was in charge of the army. Earlier, he had expressed an
intention to retire in 1988 (reaffirmed in July 1987); if he did
not, he could remain in his post until official retirement in
1992, or 1993 with a one-year extension of service.

On April 22, 1987, the Prem administration faced a no-
confidence debate in parliament, the second one since October
1986. Eighty-four opposition members sponsored the no-confidence
motion against the entire cabinet. However, amid allegations of
bribery and rumors of a coup or a parliamentary dissolution, the
censure bid failed. Fifteen of the sponsors, under heavy outside
pressure, withdrew their names on the day the debate was
scheduled to take place, leaving the motion one vote shy of the
minimum seventy votes. Opposition leaders vowed to resubmit
another no-confidence motion later.